Out of curiosity, how does it feel playing under the hit cap v at it? Is it just a case of needing to keep a closer eye on dots incase an application misses?

I'm considering reforging out of my hit-cap, at least to experiment with, but I'm curious as to if anyone who's played that way can comment on if it feels particularly different, and if so, how.

Personally I would stick to hit cap during progress.

The most important part of DPS in progress is that you do the damage in the right place at the right time. While unlikely, it is possible that a missed haunt during a particularly crucial DPS phase could lower your DPS in that particular time frame enough to have a negative impact on the raid. It probably won't have a vast impact on your overall damage, but could mean the difference between.......lets say getting an extra
stack of damage on Elegon and not getting it. That could potentially cause wipes.

I don't like the idea of risking that when it could come on the try when everyone plays really well.

Out of curiosity, how does it feel playing under the hit cap v at it? Is it just a case of needing to keep a closer eye on dots incase an application misses?

I'm considering reforging out of my hit-cap, at least to experiment with, but I'm curious as to if anyone who's played that way can comment on if it feels particularly different, and if so, how.

It's very, very similar. With the way pandemic makes dot refreshing works you now if you refresh your dots near the 40-50% base duration mark you'll have 5-10 seconds to react to the miss without losing any damage besides the extra GCD spent casting the DoT. A haunt can miss which can suck but on the two bosses I was at 7% hit for I saw maybe 2 or 3 haunt's missing. (That's 25+ attempts and 2 kills)

You have to be very vigilant in catching DoT misses, but you have so much time to react to them because of pandemic it's easy to see why hit is so undervalued as affliction.

Completely and utterly subjectively it felt like I had to pay maybe 2% more attention. Very minor but noticeable.

---------- Post added 2012-10-05 at 04:39 PM ----------

Originally Posted by klogaroth

Personally I would stick to hit cap during progress.

The most important part of DPS in progress is that you do the damage in the right place at the right time. While unlikely, it is possible that a missed haunt during a particularly crucial DPS phase could lower your DPS in that particular time frame enough to have a negative impact on the raid. It probably won't have a vast impact on your overall damage, but could mean the difference between.......lets say getting an extra
stack of damage on Elegon and not getting it. That could potentially cause wipes.

I don't like the idea of risking that when it could come on the try when everyone plays really well.

But there's also the more statistically probably situation where you get extra damage because you didn't waste stats on unneccesary hit-rating and pushed enough extra damage that you either made up for other DPS' failings or you pushed the boss that extra little bit to get a kill.

The increase in RNG in going for hit-cap vs. not going for hitcap is nowhere near the difference between 70th and 90th percentile. You may swing 1 or 2k dps in either direction with low amounts of hit and bad RNG but it's definitely not as large a swing as you seem to think it is.

I said "for example". Just example numbers to illustrate my point.

<Insurgency> is recruiting !
I am the one who knocks ... because I need your permission to enter.
·My Youtube channel·

This is just a personal preference of mine, but when the difference is a theoretical increase of a few hundred dps, I'd much rather be hit capped. I miss enough on Feng as it is (damn you epicenter!), so I'd rather just be secure in knowing that everything else is going to hit, rather than leave it up to the RNG gods.

I'm a bit confused about starting the fight. Most procs proc 2-3 seconds after the initial SB:SS, so it seems like a good idea to refresh all dots. Should I use another SB:SS after the first MG?

I don't understand why people SB:SS at the beginning of the fight. Especially now when we get DMC we want to save our soul shards. Hardcast your first UA on the pull timer from your raid, then put up agony and corrpuption followed by a full MG. After this you should've gotten your procs and you can pop dark soul/trinket. Cast a haunt and start refreshing dots the normal way again with UA->corruption->agony.

I don't understand why people SB:SS at the beginning of the fight. Especially now when we get DMC we want to save our soul shards. Hardcast your first UA on the pull timer from your raid, then put up agony and corrpuption followed by a full MG. After this you should've gotten your procs and you can pop dark soul/trinket. Cast a haunt and start refreshing dots the normal way again with UA->corruption->agony.

Ok, that makes sense. At least in scenarios where you have to reposition yourself after the pull.
But it does not address the issue of proc effects (+5500 int for me currently). Do I SB:SS after everything has procced?

Ok, that makes sense. At least in scenarios where you have to reposition yourself after the pull.
But it does not address the issue of proc effects (+5500 int for me currently). Do I SB:SS after everything has procced?

I usually Soulburn: Soul Swap once at the very start with Dark Soul + my on use trinket, and then again just before Dark Soul expires. Int procs are often still up, and then you carry on the maximum benefit of Dark Soul. Keep Haunt up for that entire duration. You should also let Corr and UA tick off completely after that.

i posted in another thread about my DMC dilemma(using or selling). wondering if its gonna be like cata volcanic deck(bis for 2+ tiers) or going to get replaced in the first raid or 2 on heroic. posting in the affliction thread because i play that as my main spec and i have a wand weapon so dont plan on playing demo any time soon lol

i posted in another thread about my DMC dilemma(using or selling). wondering if its gonna be like cata volcanic deck(bis for 2+ tiers) or going to get replaced in the first raid or 2 on heroic. posting in the affliction thread because i play that as my main spec and i have a wand weapon so dont plan on playing demo any time soon lol

Simcraft profiles changed, and DMC is no longer BiS if you can get heroic Light of the Cosmos and Essence of Terror heroic trinket for both Affli and Demo. Still BiS for Destro though. It will still be a good trinket though, make no mistake.

EDIT: Oh and Light of the Cosmos drops of Elegon and Essence of Terror of Sha of Fear so you won't have them immediately.

Simcraft profiles changed, and DMC is no longer BiS if you can get heroic Light of the Cosmos and Essence of Terror heroic trinket for both Affli and Demo. Still BiS for Destro though. It will still be a good trinket though, make no mistake.

EDIT: Oh and Light of the Cosmos drops of Elegon and Essence of Terror of Sha of Fear so you won't have them immediately.

So basically light of the cosmos and relic of yu'lon, until you get a chance to grab a normal essence of terror as an upgrade over light of cosmos and eventually a heroic light of the cosmos and between normal essence and relic until you get a heroic essence over the relic of yu'lon(kind of seems like a tough choice between normal trinkets, but with heart of fear not being out for a little while grabbing the DMC is not a bad choice at all atm).

So basically light of the cosmos and relic of yu'lon, until you get a chance to grab a normal essence of terror as an upgrade over light of cosmos and eventually a heroic light of the cosmos and between normal essence and relic until you get a heroic essence over the relic of yu'lon(kind of seems like a tough choice between normal trinkets, but with heart of fear not being out for a little while grabbing the DMC is not a bad choice at all atm).

Well high end progression raiders will have Elegon heroic down before the other 2 open, but for us lesser mortals your progress path seems more likely, yes.

I recently rerolled from shadow priest to affliction lock and have been following almost every theorycraft thread there is to max up my potential as fast as possible. However, I still feel rather unconfident about my performance.

On a single target fight, nothing is an issue for me. Keep dots up, Fel Flame while moving, Haunt when dots have 10+ seconds remaining so you can MG for max dps. DS when target is below 20%. During DS try to keep Haunt up all the time and always Soulburn: Soul Swap your dots.

However I have a few questions. When would be the optimal time to use Haunt? At the moment I use one shard at pull for Soulburn: Soul Swap. Then I MG till Corr and UA have less than 50% remaining, refresh them and use my first Haunt. Then MG till Haunt comes off and refresh dots again. If 2 or 3 shards, use Haunt and repeat the cycle.

What I am asking, how many shards do you need to have for using it? I guess when I have 1 shard, I should not cast it? But what else is important? Am I doing everything right, as I described? I feel like I am missing something important.

Also, feel free to comment on what I said / correct me and guide me to the right path.

our best try on Elegon tonight. My dot uptime on the boss was terrible, because I was focusing down adds basically by myself, while the rest of the raid nuked the boss. But do you see anything else I could work with?

Regarding haunt it's basically just what you said besides trying to stack soul shards for procs/CD's. With the new darkmoon card (which is a must get since it's BiS this tier) you won't use haunt much at all when you don't have that proc up or when it's time to pop dark soul. You'll pretty much just be stacking all the time and use haunt whenever you're capped at soul shards.

This are the logs from yesterday, if you dont mind can you guys take a look.

Can u check some flaws I did? Most important for me it Feng since Gara´jal I died at the begin of the fight, wasn't my fault tho ^^. ( on spirit realm).

I'm aware that I did some mistakes on Feng such as:

1º I used Doomguard at the begin of the fight.

2º I forgot to Drain Soul at <20% I just start to use it at 15-16%.

Tbh I don't get it why my dps it's so low on Feng, top 8º on meters. I was refreshing my dots before they fade 1-2 sec, but on earthquake I was refreshing them before it. So I barely let the dots fade. My uptime was close to 100%. So I don't get it! 98-99% in all dots.

On Battle net you can check me, my name it's Vort. You can look into gear, enchants, gems, etc... I can't link it because I'm at my work and that site it's blocked.

I recently rerolled from shadow priest to affliction lock and have been following almost every theorycraft thread there is to max up my potential as fast as possible. However, I still feel rather unconfident about my performance.

On a single target fight, nothing is an issue for me. Keep dots up, Fel Flame while moving, Haunt when dots have 10+ seconds remaining so you can MG for max dps. DS when target is below 20%. During DS try to keep Haunt up all the time and always Soulburn: Soul Swap your dots.

However I have a few questions. When would be the optimal time to use Haunt? At the moment I use one shard at pull for Soulburn: Soul Swap. Then I MG till Corr and UA have less than 50% remaining, refresh them and use my first Haunt. Then MG till Haunt comes off and refresh dots again. If 2 or 3 shards, use Haunt and repeat the cycle.

What I am asking, how many shards do you need to have for using it? I guess when I have 1 shard, I should not cast it? But what else is important? Am I doing everything right, as I described? I feel like I am missing something important.

Also, feel free to comment on what I said / correct me and guide me to the right path.

our best try on Elegon tonight. My dot uptime on the boss was terrible, because I was focusing down adds basically by myself, while the rest of the raid nuked the boss. But do you see anything else I could work with?

Thanks.

I usually play demo but see that raidwise Affli is more viable for some of the fights I decided to try out affli spec and I don't really understand why do you MG until 50% of the dots? Isn't it viable to use at pull DS +SB:SW + 2*Haunt and MG for the duration of both Haunts + SB:SW at the end of DS (as someone mentioned here already) in order to make the maximum use of the buffed dots?

I recently rerolled from shadow priest to affliction lock and have been following almost every theorycraft thread there is to max up my potential as fast as possible. However, I still feel rather unconfident about my performance.

On a single target fight, nothing is an issue for me. Keep dots up, Fel Flame while moving, Haunt when dots have 10+ seconds remaining so you can MG for max dps. DS when target is below 20%. During DS try to keep Haunt up all the time and always Soulburn: Soul Swap your dots.

However I have a few questions. When would be the optimal time to use Haunt? At the moment I use one shard at pull for Soulburn: Soul Swap. Then I MG till Corr and UA have less than 50% remaining, refresh them and use my first Haunt. Then MG till Haunt comes off and refresh dots again. If 2 or 3 shards, use Haunt and repeat the cycle.

What I am asking, how many shards do you need to have for using it? I guess when I have 1 shard, I should not cast it? But what else is important? Am I doing everything right, as I described? I feel like I am missing something important.

Also, feel free to comment on what I said / correct me and guide me to the right path.

our best try on Elegon tonight. My dot uptime on the boss was terrible, because I was focusing down adds basically by myself, while the rest of the raid nuked the boss. But do you see anything else I could work with?

Start with Dark Soul and apply your DoTs instantly. Your DoTs are now supercharged with Haste so you should keep Haunt up 100% of the time until those DoTs have fallen off. When Dark Soul is about to expire, Soulburn: Soul Swap again to carry on the duration of Dark Soul for as long as possible. Let Corruption and UA tick off completely before refreshing them, and keep Haunt up until those DoTS expired. You'll probably have used 5 or 6 shards by now.

Use Haunt to buff DoTs that are already stronger than normal, or when you have 4 shards.